What does non-selling time cost you?
Describe your reps’ typical week: the share actually spent selling, what the tasks that don’t sell cost, the recoverable hours and what they are worth in calls, meetings and revenue.
See where the hours that should sell go
Your week
Results update with every change
Your team
Headcount, working time and the cost of a rep.
Per rep, breaks excluded.
Vacation, public holidays and training excluded.
That is $43.48 per hour.
Base salary, employer taxes and benefits, variable pay; tools and workstation if you want a complete cost.
The tasks that don’t sell
Minutes per day and per rep. Add, rename, remove.
CRM entry and updates
min / day%Looking up numbers and contacts
min / day%Manual dialing, unanswered rings, voicemails
min / day%Scheduling and chasing meetings
min / day%Reporting and internal meetings
min / day%Admin emails and quotes
min / day%Other
min / day%
The share of this time a better tool or process could give back to selling. Never 100%: checks and exceptions always remain.
Total: 17.5 h per week and per rep, 44% of working time.
What an hour of prospecting is worth
To turn recovered hours into meetings and revenue.
Calls per hour and conversation rate change with the mode, as does the recoverable share of dialing (10% manual, 80% power, 90% parallel dialer). Reference points from our FAQ, editable.
Dialing, ringing and voicemails included. Calls that lead to a real conversation with the right person.
Share of conversations with a decision maker that end in a meeting.
Share of meetings that end in a customer, even after several exchanges.
Value of a new customer: first order or first contract year.
Results updated: 56% of the week spent selling.
Your week, in numbers
Per rep, then for the team
Share of the week spent selling
56%
22.5 h of selling time out of 40 h worked
About half the week sells
Non-selling time
17.5 h
per week, per rep
- per month
- 67 h
- per year
- 805 h
- for the team of 5
- 4,025 h per year
What this time costs every year
Team’s non-selling hours × fully loaded hourly cost.
$175,000
The equivalent of 2.2 full-time reps paid not to sell.
About half the week sells
Non-selling time is still significant. The task ranking below shows which ones cost the most and which are the easiest to recover.
With the recoverable hours reinvested, the selling share would reach 76%.
The tool’s reading thresholds (40, 60 and 75% selling time), not a market standard.
Your typical day
Each column is a working day; each block, a task. Green is the time that sells. 8 h per day
What an hour of prospecting is worth
Expected revenue from one hour spent calling, at your rates.
An hour of prospecting is worth $197
70 calls, 1.75 conversations, 0.26 meetings, 0.066 customer won.
| Mode | Calls | Conversations | Meetings | Customers | Revenue / hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual | 22 | 0.55 | 0.08 | 0.021 | $61.88 |
| Power dialerSelected mode | 70 | 1.75 | 0.26 | 0.066 | $197 |
| Parallel dialer | 175 | 14 | 2.1 | 0.525 | $1,575 |
Per hour and per rep. The dialing mode changes the number of calls in the hour and the share that ends in a conversation; meeting and win rates stay yours.
Recoverable hours and what they are worth
If every recovered hour is reinvested in prospecting, for the whole team. A recovered hour counts as an hour of calling, dialing and ringing included.
Recoverable hours
1,840 h
per year, for the team of 5
8 h per week and per rep, 46% of non-selling time.
Today · share of the week spent selling
After · share of the week spent selling
These hours already cost you $80,000 a year in salaries: recovering them adds no expense, only selling time.
| Per month | Per year | |
|---|---|---|
| Extra prospecting hours | 153 h | 1,840 h |
| Calls | 10,733 | 128,800 |
| Conversations | 268 | 3,220 |
| Meetings | 40.3 | 483 |
| Customers won | 10.1 | 120.8 |
| Revenue | $30,188 | $362,250 |
The tasks that cost the most
For the team, over the year. The last column is the expected revenue if the recoverable share went back to prospecting.
The heaviest item: Manual dialing, unanswered rings, voicemails, $37,500 a year.
| Task | Share | Hours / year | Cost | Recoverable | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manual dialing, unanswered rings, voicemails | 21% | 863 h | $37,500 | 690 h | $135,844 |
| Reporting and internal meetings | 19% | 767 h | $33,333 | 230 h | $45,281 |
| Admin emails and quotes | 19% | 767 h | $33,333 | 153 h | $30,188 |
| CRM entry and updates | 14% | 575 h | $25,000 | 345 h | $67,922 |
| Looking up numbers and contacts | 10% | 383 h | $16,667 | 268 h | $52,828 |
| Scheduling and chasing meetings | 10% | 383 h | $16,667 | 153 h | $30,188 |
| Other | 7% | 288 h | $12,500 | 0 h | $0 |
| Total | 100% | 4,025 h | $175,000 | 1,840 h | $362,250 |
The calculation in detail
Your numbers, in the formulas.
- Hourly cost = annual cost ÷ (hours per week × weeks) = $80,000 ÷ (40 × 46) = $43.48
- Non-selling time = 210 min per day × 5 days ÷ 60 = 17.5 h per week, 44% of working time
- Annual cost = 17.5 h × 46 weeks × 5 reps × $43.48 = $175,000
- Recoverable hours = 8 h per week × 46 weeks × 5 reps = 1,840 h per year
- Value of an hour = 70 calls × 2.5% × 15% × 25% × $3,000 = $197
- Recoverable revenue = 1,840 h × $197 = $362,250 per year
Share the result
The link carries all your assumptions, tasks included. It is only created when you click.
Summary preview
Selling time (5 reps) Share of the week spent selling: 56% Non-selling time: 17.5 h per week and per rep Annual cost of non-selling time: $175,000 Recoverable hours: 1,840 h per year for the team Recoverable revenue: $362,250 per year (an hour of prospecting is worth $197) Details and assumptions: …
Give those hours back to selling. Skipcall chains calls in power dialer or parallel dialer mode with up to four lines, skips voicemails, transcribes and summarizes every conversation, and updates HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce or Attio after the call: dialing, note-taking and data entry leave your reps’ week.
Your numbers never leave your browser. The tool sends nothing and stores nothing. How to check
Selling time and non-selling time: what are we talking about?
Selling time is time spent in contact with a prospect or a customer: a phone conversation with a decision maker, a meeting, a demo, a negotiation, an email that moves a deal forward. Everything else is non-selling time: looking up a number, dialing, listening to a voicemail, logging the call in the CRM, preparing a report, sitting in an internal meeting, writing a quote, chasing a meeting that won’t confirm.
That time is not useless: without an up-to-date CRM there is no readable pipeline; without quotes, no signatures. But it is paid at a sales rep’s rate, and every hour it takes is one hour less in conversation. The calculator’s question is therefore not “how do we remove admin” but “what does it cost, and what share could come back to selling with better tools or processes”.
The calculator quotes no market average: studies on time spent selling exist, but their figures depend on how they define “selling”, on the industry and on the role. The only week that matters is yours, and the method below explains how to measure it in five days.
The formulas, with the starting assumptions
Each task is entered in minutes per day and per rep. The starting assumptions add up to 210 minutes: 30 of CRM entry, 20 looking up numbers, 45 of dialing and voicemails, 20 of scheduling, 40 of reporting and meetings, 40 of admin and quotes, 15 of other. Over five days that is 17.5 hours per week, 44% of a 40-hour week: the selling share is 56%.
The cost of that time uses the rep’s fully loaded hourly cost: annual loaded cost divided by the hours worked in the year. At $80,000 for 40 hours over 46 weeks, an hour costs $43.48. For a team of five, 17.5 hours per week make 4,025 hours a year, about $175,000 of salaries devoted to something other than selling, the equivalent of 2.2 full-time reps.
The recoverable share is the most important assumption, and the most personal one. For each task you estimate what a better tool or process would give back to selling: 80% of manual dialing if a dialer chains calls and skips voicemails, 60% of CRM entry if notes and sync are automatic, only 20% of quotes. With the starting values, 96 minutes a day are recoverable, 8 hours per week and per rep, 1,840 hours a year for the team.
Those hours are then valued as prospecting hours. In power dialer mode the starting assumption is 70 calls per hour with 2.5% conversations, 1.75 conversations; with 15% meetings per conversation and 25% wins per meeting, an hour yields 0.26 meetings and 0.066 customers, about $197 of revenue with a $3,000 deal size. The 1,840 recovered hours are then worth $362,000 of revenue a year. That is not a forecast: it is what your own rates imply if the recovered time is actually reinvested.
Why the dialing mode changes the value of an hour
With manual dialing, the rep types or clicks each number, waits for the ring, lands on a voicemail, hangs up, takes a note, starts again: around twenty calls an hour, two or three of them conversations. A power dialer chains numbers one after the other with no dead time, around 70 calls an hour at the same conversation rate. A parallel dialer dials several numbers at once and only hands the line to the rep when a human picks up: more calls in the hour, and a much larger share that ends in a conversation, since voicemails are filtered out.
The “what an hour is worth” table shows the three modes side by side with your meeting and win rates. It serves two purposes: knowing what a recovered hour would bring, and seeing what a change of mode would do to the prospecting hours you already have. Calls per hour and conversation rates per mode are orders of magnitude Skipcall states in its FAQ, not market averages: replace them with yours as soon as you know them.
What the calculator does not say
It does not say those hours will actually be reinvested in prospecting. Freed time fills up quickly, with meetings or breaks, if it is not assigned to a precise, measured activity. The recoverable revenue assumes a management decision: the hours given back go to calling, with a weekly conversations target.
Nor does it say your rates will stay constant. Doubling prospecting hours does not always double meetings: the list runs dry, the best time slots are already taken. For a cautious estimate, lower the conversation rate by a few tenths of a point when you simulate a large volume of extra hours.
Finally, it measures time, not quality. A rep who spends 30 minutes a day on the CRM but keeps it spotless may be worth more than one who spends 10 and leaves the pipeline wrong. The recoverable share is there for that: it lets you decide, task by task, what has to stay.
How to measure your own week
The starting minutes are assumptions. Five days of measurement are enough to replace them with yours.
- 1
Choose the categories before you start
Start from the tool’s seven tasks and adapt them to your team: merge what looks alike, add what is specific to you (meeting preparation, travel, after-sales). Beyond ten categories the log becomes wrong because nobody keeps it.
- 2
Time a normal week
Not a trade show week nor a quarter close. Each rep notes, per half hour, the dominant activity. A simple shared sheet is enough; phone tools and the CRM also give the real time spent on calls and data entry, more reliable than memory.
- 3
Count conversations, not just hours
An hour of calls only sells for the share spent in conversation. If your phone system separates dialing, ringing, voicemail and conversation, put the first three under “dialing and voicemails”: it is often the biggest surprise of the log.
- 4
Estimate the recoverable share with the reps
For each task, ask reps what a tool or process would change, and what has to stay. Write down the low end of the range: the calculator is more useful cautious. Then reinvest the recovered time in a precise target, and redo the log three months later.
The levers, task by task
The tool’s ranking says where the reserve is. Here is what you act on behind each line.
-
Dialing and voicemails
A power dialer removes dialing and the dead time between two calls; a parallel dialer also filters voicemails and no-answers. It is the task with the highest recoverable share, because the tool does exactly that job.
-
CRM entry and notes
Automatic call transcription and summary, call outcome logged in one click, sync with the CRM after the call: data entry shrinks to a check. Keep time for qualification, which remains a rep’s job.
-
Looking up numbers and contacts
Number enrichment upstream, lists validated and deduplicated before the calling session, sequences that present the next contact without searching. The phone number validator in this section does part of that work for free.
-
Reporting, meetings, admin
The recoverable share is lower: this time depends on organization more than on tools. Dashboards fed automatically by call data, shorter and less frequent meetings, quotes from templates. A 20% gain there is already a lot.
The mistakes that distort the calculation
-
Counting 100% recoverable
No tool removes a task entirely: checks, special cases and customers who demand a bespoke quote remain. A 100% recoverable share gives a flattering, wrong revenue figure.
-
Forgetting that recovered time must be reinvested
The gain only exists if the hours given back go to prospecting, with a conversations target. Without an explicit decision, they dissolve into the week.
-
Confusing calling hours and conversations
An hour spent “on the phone” with manual dialing is mostly waiting and voicemails. Selling time is the conversation. Put dialing under non-selling tasks, that is what it is for.
-
Entering base salary instead of loaded cost
What a rep costs the company includes employer taxes, benefits, variable pay and often tools. Base salary underestimates the cost of non-selling time by a third or more.
-
Keeping the same rates for a large extra volume
If recovered hours triple the call volume, conversation rates may drop: list exhausted, worse time slots. Also simulate a cautious variant.
-
Measuring an unrepresentative week
A trade show week, a quarter close or a school holiday week does not have the same split. Take an ordinary week, or the average of two.
Going further
The tools in this section that extend the calculation, upstream or downstream.
- How many calls does your target take? The same funnel in reverse: start from the customers to win and get the calls, hours and reps needed.
- Cost per Meeting Calculator What each booked and held meeting costs, salaries and tools included, by dialing mode.
- Manual, power or parallel dialer? Eight questions to find out which dialing mode fits your volume and your list.
- Phone Number Validator A clean list before the calling session: less lookup, fewer invalid numbers dialed for nothing.
- Sales Rep ROI Calculator The fully loaded cost of a rep, their break-even point and the return on every dollar.
- All free tools Calculators, generators and checkers for prospecting teams.
How to check that your numbers never leave your browser
The calculation is done by code running in your browser: your salaries, rates and tasks are sent neither to Skipcall nor to anyone. The tool stores nothing, not even in the browser’s local storage. The page address stays untouched while you type: the share link is only built when you click “copy the link”.
The simplest test: once the page has loaded, disconnect from the internet, then change a value. Results keep updating.
In your browser’s Network tab you will see the site’s audience measurement tools, as on all our pages. None of them receives the content of your fields: the tool area is excluded from session recording and only clicks on “copy” are counted, without their content.
A calendar full of meetings starts with a call.
No commitment · Number live in 2 minutes
